For more than a century, the Core Curriculum has defined the Columbia College experience, challenging students to engage directly with the texts and ideas that have shaped Western thought. Yet until 2012, GS students were not part of this cherished tradition. In his efforts to give
GS students the same academic opportunities as their peers at Columbia College and Columbia Engineering, the late Dean of GS Peter Awn pushed for their access to the Core Curriculum. Today, all GS students who
come in with less than 30 credits are required to take Core classes of University Writing and the year-long sequence of Literary Humanities and Contemporary Civilization classes. However, they can choose between several options for the Art and Music Humanities classes and can swap in three science courses for Frontiers of Science.
Flexibility also extends to how GS students take these classes—choosing GS-only sections or joining mixed Columbia College classes. Literary Humanities professor Rachel Adams sees her GS section as a bonding experience for cohorts, such as veterans, dual-degree students, and performing artists. She values the atmosphere of openness and curiosity shaped by her students’ varied backgrounds and recalled one student in his late thirties, from a STEM profession, who “every day was teaching the class something. Afterward, he told me that taking the class had given him confidence in his ability to talk about literature and culture.” In mixed Core sections, that same maturity helps traditional undergraduates see the works—and the world—anew.
Adams said that it is gratifying to see her students become engaged with the material. She described one student veteran who initially felt that the assigned readings—which ranged from the Sumerian Exaltation of Inanna to Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon—did not feel relevant to his life. “But one day we were talking about leadership,” said Adams, “and what kind of leader Odysseus was.” After class, the student told Adams about having served in Afghanistan. “The course had been clicking in his mind, and he saw how it resonated with his military experience. And he was like, ‘Wow, this is very cool.’”
